Harpenden Building Society has agreed a three year funding support programme with the St Albans based youth counselling charity, Youth Talk.
Over the course of three years, funding from the Harpenden Building Society’s Grassroots Endowment Fund, will enable 100 Youth Talk counselling sessions per year for young people in the St Albans district who are struggling with mental health.
Speaking about the important role that Youth Talk play in the local community, Chief Executive of Youth Talk, Trevor Fromant, said, “We provide counselling services to local young people aged 13 – 25 years at a time in their life when they are making an important and potentially turbulent transition from childhood to adulthood.”
Caring for the well-being of young people in our community
Phil Bannister, Head of Operations at the Harpenden Building Society said: “Our Grassroots Endowment Fund was set up to help our local communities and has subsequently led us to being awarded a Corporate Social Responsibility Award and Mayor’s Pride Award for Community Oriented Business of the Year.”
“With reports of mental health affecting one in four of the UK population, the Society were keen to channel funds towards paid for counselling sessions that will help some of the young people within our communities to manage and improve their well-being.”
The funding agreement between Youth Talk and Harpenden Building Society has been facilitated and will be managed by the Hertfordshire Community Foundation (HCF), an independent charity that aims to encourage local philanthropy, the giving of time, resources or both by local people, to help support their local communities.
A joined up approach to well-being in the community
Working closely with both the Harpenden Building Society and Youth Talk, HCF identified youth mental health as being a key concern for both organisations during their Hertfordshire Matters research, which led to HCF matching the two as funding partners.
The funding agreement has been hailed by the foundation as a fantastic example of how local businesses are able to help local charities and urges other local businesses to consider the ways in which they can help Hertfordshire to thrive.